Jurassic Park & the Spielberg Oner — How to Direct a Long Take like Steven Spielberg

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Jurassic Park (1993) changed what was possible in filmmaking. Steven Spielberg turned a B-movie premise into one of the greatest blockbusters of all time. But what makes Jurassic Park such a good movie has very little to do with the actual dinosaurs. A vast majority of Jurassic Park is dino-free, and what are we left with? Character development, exposition filled scientific jargon, and themes about parenthood. No, what makes Jurassic Park so good is that Steven Spielberg understands how cinematography and film language can make any scene engaging.

In this Jurassic Park analysis, we’re going to look at Steven Spielberg’s cinematography, especially his long takes and camera movement techniques. By now, you probably know enough about Steven Spielberg’s filmmaking style to know that he loves a good oner. Where most filmmakers will shoot simple coverage, Spielberg will take a simple dialogue scene and shoot it in a long take with dynamic camera movement techniques. But why? Is he just trying to show off or are there valuable cinematic techniques on display?

Consider the scene when John (Richard Attenborough) must convince Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) of his plan to “shut down the system.” Spielberg uses simple blocking, staging, and camera movements to shoot a oner with 4 distinct set-ups. Not only did he save time by shooting this scene in one shot, he made a potentially dry and uninteresting dialogue scene more compelling. As John explains how his plan will work, the camera is drawn towards him and we, the audience, are also being engaged in his plan.

These filmmaking techniques centered around blocking, staging, camera movement and framing are the fundamental building blocks of film language. And no one understands this better than Steven Spielberg.

#filmmaking #directing #cinematography

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